Apparently the initial results from polls are:

Nicola Sturgeon 28%
Nigel Farage 20% (WTF?! I actually thought it was the worst he's ever looked)
David Cameron 18%
Ed Miliband 15%
Nick Clegg 10%
Natalie Bennett 5%
Leanne Wood 4%

Forgot two things from Nigel Farage's "debate".

COMMUNIST IMMIGRANTS!!!!11

Farage looked out of his depth in that first half of the debate, but really came into his groove when they hit immigration.

I think what really helped him out was that he directly answered the questions rather than just shifting blame onto another party (Ed, Dave, Nick). People like that. After decades of politicians avoiding questions and giving "politician" answers, a lot of people are drawn into Nigels way of answering questions directed at him.

I think his "Phone Farage" thing on LBC is a really good example of this, no matter what your opinion on him is.

I wish the SNP were standing in England.

My rating

Cameron
Farage
Clegg
Sturgeon
Milliband
Welsh woman
Green woman

Because spending far more money everywhere rather than just a part of the country that was decided in 1978 is the perfect solution to the fact that we already spent too much...

I don't believe that there is a fixed amount that is "too much". With the current low cost of borrowing, and the high potential rate of return on:

- Roads
- Rail
- Fibre/cell network
- Education, especially 1 to 1 support for those falling behind in school, or in prisons for reintegration purposes, or in deprived areas in general
- Research, especially on renewable energy, batteries, healthcare, and materials science
- Goverment IT projects that replace paper, manual entry, or fragmented, expensive custom systems with a joined up one (like gov.uk)

It makes no sense NOT to invest. The right choice of spending will generate more money than the interest payments.

This is the whole thing though. It's a low cost of borrowing because we're not pumping shitloads into things. Interest rates are based on perception of ability to repay. The SNP/Green etc view, is "well, interest isn't much". But their plans would cause our interest rates to increase. We've already got so much borrowing, that even a 1% increase on our interest rates, would completely bankrupt us.

It was the fact we had "failed Austerity" that we've actually been lucky enough to hold onto those low interest rates. However I do agree that the "right" investment could have dividends regardless. However, nothing the SNP/Greens/Plaid Cymru suggested we invest in would have generated more money than the interest payments for them, because they were pretty much throwing money at things, not investing.